A Guide to the Documents Relating to the Trial of Ruby McCollum for the Murder of Dr. LeRoy Adams, Live Oak, Florida, 1954

Documents Relating to the Trial of Ruby McCollum for the Murder of Dr. LeRoy Adams, Live Oak, Florida

Dates:

1954

Abstract:

Documents relating to the trial of Ruby McCollum for the murder of Dr. LeRoy Adams, Live Oak, Florida, 1954. Official records copied from the State of Florida Archives and notes and correspondence of Zora Neale Hurston, among others.

In 1952, Ruby McCollum, a black woman shot and killed her white lover, prominent Live Oak, Florida, physician C. Leroy Adams. Her subsequent conviction and death sentence (1954) were later overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, but she was declared mentally incompetent and incarcerated for many years in a mental hospital. Zora Neale Hurston covered the trial for the Pittsburgh Courier and collaborated with William Bradford Huie whose book, Ruby McCollum: Woman in the Suwannee Jail (New York, 1956) is the principal account of the case.

Notes on the trial by Zora Neale Hurston, a Hurston letter to William Bradford Huie, notes compiled by an unknown source, and official court documents. All documents are photocopies. The collection also includes the complete transcripts of the trial in digital format.

Access

[Identification of item], Documents Relating to the Trial of Ruby McCollum for the Murder of Dr. LeRoy Adams, Live Oak, Florida, 1954, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.

Official Court Documents, reproduced from the Florida State Archives: Ruby McCollum, appellant, vs. State of Florida, appellee. Brief for Appellant, filed April 15, 1954. 76 p.

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Official Court Documents, reproduced from the Florida State Archives: In the Supreme Court of Florida, Ruby McCollum, appellant, vs. State of Florida, appellee, Opinion filed July 20, 1954. 3 p.

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The Trial of Ruby McCollum: The True-crime Story That Shook the Foundations of the Segregationist South! by C. Arthur Ellis, Jr., and Leslie E. Ellis, 2003. CD-ROM version. Contains a complete copy of the transcripts of the trial. 2 copies.